Complicated
by Pandasushiroll
Summary: A small peek into the complicated relationship of Tim Drake and Damian Wayne
1. Complicated

Complicated

Lately aspects of Tim Drake's life were becoming horrendously complex. Aside from the whole "nerd by day and hero by night" thing he had going on with his nonexistent social life, the increasingly awkward tension with his father at home, and the irritating responsibility to remain in the top rankings of his academic life, his life was pretty decent. Mostly. He could handle all that balance between his vigilante life, home, and school stuff. What Tim Drake _did _have tremendous difficulty dealing with was his love life. Which to his great surprise actually did in fact exist.

It was here, in his "love" life, that things got…complicated. Abstruse to say the least. Tim didn't much care for the term "love life" because well…not every relationship had love _in_ it. He thought of the specifics of how this troubling matter should be labeled, tugging absently on the tie of his uniform as he stepped onto the first step outside Wayne manor. Alfred greeted him with that all-knowing look the butler always possessed in the presence of the Wayne kids. Tim tried to ignore the way Alfred coughed discreetly when he glanced warily around the foyer. "Is there someone you wish to avoid, sir?"

"What makes you say that?" Tim kicked his shoes off with little grace, much to the butler's disappointment. Disappointment in the boy's lack of manners, not the lack of grace of course. Alas, the older man was use to it by now.

"Pardon the assumption, the wary glancing about must have thrown me off," How the butler managed to be so glib in such a polite tone still baffled Tim, but the boy chose not to comment on it. "Who is it you wish to find?"

"…" Tim didn't want to say it. The real reason he was there. '_I haven't seen him in days' _Would have only received a scoff from the host in question and a door slammed in Tim's face. And '_I missed him' _may as well have been proof he wasn't a man. "I…"

"The young master is in his room, if you wish to speak with him." Alfred offered, Tim pressed his lips together and gave a curt nod. Deliberately ignoring the small chuckle the old man hid under his breath, Tim fled down the directed hallway.

Speaking to Damian was always so…_difficult. _He could never just have a normal conversation-admittedly the two shared nothing in common that could constitute an actual "normal" conversation but still- he always, always, _always _had to be right. The little demon could give a bull a run for his money. Tim pushed open the bedroom door as quietly as he could, suppressing the sigh that threatened to surface lest he be scolded by the brat wonder.

Why?

Damian was evil. Plain and simple. That boy had a cold, hard, heart of stone with ice pumping through his veins. Tim tried not to dwell on the fact that, despite this, he was still very much attracted to said boy. Only made more evident by the intensity with which he watched aforementioned boy towel himself off.

Demon-Damian was in the process of drying himself after an extremely hot shower- judging by the reddened patches of skin on the boy's back-while Tim fought the urge to snatch him up and play with him like a toy. A chuckle escaped him at the thought, drawing Damian's attention, immediately earning Drake a scowl.

"Do you make a habit of watching half naked men, Drake?" Not as caustic as Tim had expected.

"I don't know about _men,_" He taunted, "but _you _on the other hand…certainly." Damian's scowl grew impossibly larger.

"And _your_ suggestive jokes amuse me even less than _Grayson's_ do." Ah. There it was. The scathing remark that bit into Tim's confidence. Damian had to know the effect the…offhand comments had on him. Oh yes, he had **meant **the comment to shake Tim's confidence. His insides curled in, then twisted into a tight painful ball of jealousy. He was on his feet pacing toward Damian before he could stop himself.

Adding fuel to the fire, the sixteen year old smirked that devilishly handsome smirk. "Something wrong?" Oh that dream devouring, heart breaking, soul shattering, little imp of a boy. To his shame, Tim couldn't restrain the lunge he made for his prey. Damian wasn't surprised.

Tim often wondered why,_ why _he kept crawling back to this brat, this **boy**, when it was obvious Damian couldn't care less than an inch about his feelings. Ironically, Damian held similar thoughts. How much would Tim let him get away with? He wondered, and pondered, and questioned Tim's reasoning as he was pushed into the wall. Molded against the older boy's weight, Damian wondered, why did Tim put up with him?

One night when the older boy lounged on the couch, flipping through schematics of a possible new bat-vehicle, Damian had entered. Quite abruptly, in a strange sort of haze. He looked frazzled to say the least.

Tim had stared quizzically, brow quirked on cue.

"You..." Damian began with an uncertainty that was so unlike him, Tim was almost sure the situation had to be happening in his imagination, "What do you know about my father?"

Tim was tempted to answer with, "What you can't ask him yourself?" or "Whoa I was the second adopted one, ask Grayson, he's the expert." But neither seemed as if they would be received well. Instead he tried setting the blue prints aside, and asking a question of his own. "What do you want to know about him?"

"He…isn't always clear when he speaks to me."

_That _was the big problem?

"Well, that's Bruce for you." When he only received a confounded look in reply, he went on. "What I mean is…Bruce has this way of talking-implying things. Most of the time he'll say one thing, but mean something completely different. You get use to deciphering everything he says eventually. Don't worry, you'll get use to it."

There was a moment of revolutionary silence, before the wall Damian set firmly in place returned. "I wasn't _worried, _merely curious. That is all."

Tim was certain he had never seen the younger boy flee so quickly in the time he had known him.

"Right…"


	2. What is Normal?

What is Normal?

Tim had a long list of things he had come to expect over his years, with the members of what he fondly (sometimes not so fondly) thought of as the Bat family. None of them were normal things. So when the youngest member of their crime fighting brigade stood affront the mirror in Tim's bathroom (the fact that the little demon had come into his room at all was already alarming) scowling at the reflective surface, (Tim knew how that felt, poor mirror) he was more surprised by how _normal _it was for a kid to be doing his hair in the morning rather than the fact that it was _Damian Wayne _being the normal kid doing his hair in Tim's bathroom in the morning.

"Can I…help you?" He was hesitant to ask only because this whole situation was bemusing enough. The small hiss he received in response should have deterred him, but it didn't.

It became predictably clear predictably quickly he wasn't going to be getting an actual answer any time soon, so Tim walked passed the younger boy and plucked his toothbrush out of the white mug sporting a mustache on his countertop to brush his teeth.

Damian, for the most part ignored him, completely and totally enraptured by his own image while his hands hovered around his awkwardly spiked head. His hair was mussed and weird and from what Tim could tell either extremely wet or full of gel. He chuckled under his breath.

_Ah. _Now he knew what was going on.

Despite the theory that Damian was believed to be either the spawn of Satan (no offense to Bruce), some part imp, or more likely (in Tim's opinion) an alien and/or robot constructed to observe normal human beings (though who among the Wayne-Drake-Grayson-Todd-Gordon-Pennyworth family was really normal?) he did, on extremely rare occasion, act _almost_ like a typical teenage boy.

"Bad hair day?"

The way the muscles in the other boy's naked back tensed was nearly imperceptible, but Tim caught it none the less. His eyebrow twitched, clearly in annoyance, and suddenly Tim felt the urge to catch the small child in a headlock for the arrogance in said child's next statement; "Feeling self-conscious?"

That was the last time he tried to start a casual conversation with the demon child from hell.

(It wasn't _really _the last time but Tim wasn't ready to admit that yet.)

Petty retort accomplished, Damian immediately returned to tending to his mess of hair all round strange styling. Tim tried not to laugh at the serious expression stuck on the kid's face the whole time. He had to vigorously brush his teeth just to keep his face from betraying his struggle to not blatantly laugh at the kid for being so _childish._ It was actually pretty adorable if he thought about it. Then he tried to think of the last time he had seen Damian acting his age and came the sad conclusion that the chance of actually getting to see Damian acting the way a fifteen year old _should _act was so incredibly unlikely you would have a better chance of witnessing a meteor taking out the Gotham Bank during the afternoon. And that made Tim pause.

Damian meanwhile, was still completely lost in his own world of confusing complexities that involved insulting virtually every person he spoke to and trying to sound ridiculously smart all the time while simultaneously being one of the most (unfairly) attractive young men Tim Drake had ever met. The hard life of a young Wayne. Obviously doing his hair was more interesting than the rest of the world.

As the cool top of the mug touched his lips, Tim found himself attempting to discern what the hell kind of look the little brat was going for. He tried to picture what sort of image the other boy could have seen that would inspire such…unusualness. (It was all Tim could do to keep his brow from furrowing when he pictured the type of reading material that would create an urge to do one's hair in such an abstract way.) Lithe fingers dragged through his dark, thickly gelled locks in hurried, rough strokes that were starting to make Tim's mind wander to places it probably shouldn't. He chided himself. Why was it he found so many things Damian did attractive?

He sighed, which oddly enough, caught said attractive boy's attention. Tim should feel _so_ honored. "What are you harping about _now _, Drake?"

Tim spat his effectively gurgled water into the sink and quickly took a big swig of more water to refrain from responding with something he would regret later. Damian squinted at him like a wet cat. Tim set his mug down again with a satisfied grin.

Under normal circumstances, he would have done one of two things next.

One; verbally engage in a battle of wits with this brat until the dawn of three days from now.

Two; turn on his heel and walk right out of there before he decked said brat right in the nose (which he had done a few times before)

Or if Tim was feeling really crazy, he would go for option three; just deck the kid without a second thought for good measure.

Fortunately for Damian, Tim wasn't feeling any of the above choices.

In fact, Tim was feeling a bit of option four.

And Damian made the most hilarious noise when Tim's arm encircled his neck. It was even funnier how the younger boy instantly started squirming as Tim pivoted and proceeded to rub his knuckles none too gently through the over gelled spikey hair.

"Drake! If you do not relinquish your hold on me within five seconds I will break every single bone in your body."

"Oh? So your plan is to put your hands all over me?" Playing coy was always fun when Damian was least expecting it.

The falter in his voice was acute, and it was downright precious. "W-what? Don't be an idiot. I wouldn't-" Some more struggling followed by several strings of a foreign language that Tim assumed consisted of many, many curse words.

"Damn it Drake! Release me at once!" A sharp elbow to the stomach and Damian won his freedom.

Tim leaned back against the counter, absently rubbing the newly sore spot where the little demon attacked him. Though honestly, Tim really should have seen that one coming.

And if Tim thought Damian looked cranky before, he was damn near livid now.

The shove was abrupt, fingers digging into the top of Tim's shoulders as he forced the older boy to sit on the toilet (thank god he had made the habit of closing the lid or that could have gone horribly wrong). The porcelain's cool temperature would have bothered him if not for the thick sweats he'd been smart enough to wear, and yet he felt his body prickle against the other boy's touch. Tim wasn't normally submissive not by any means, his body just happened to be more compliant with Damian than he would have liked, but right now Tim was more focused on watching for any more surprise attacks that would leave him potentially impaired for the rest of his life.

For a few lingering moments, the only move Damian made was his slow, methodical breathing as if he were weighing the best means of retribution for Tim's playful apparently insulting antics. He thought things through when he wanted to, a trait eerily similar to Bruce and Dick-but Tim didn't want to think of either of those two right now. Not here. Not like _this_. Not when he was with Damian. The son and impressionable younger brother. Certainly not _Tim's _younger brother. You didn't grip a younger brother's hips the way he was now, or undress them with your eyes, and you _definitely _don't press an open mouth kiss on a younger brother's stomach.

Tim watched him closely, peeking up through thick lashes, eyes following the curve of bronze along the other boy's throat, how Damian swallowed under his watch. Was he nervous? Did he _ever _get nervous when they…?

Those slender fingers were still on his shoulders, uncharacteristically soft against a pale scar that stretched over Tim's right shoulder (as a result of one of the many sharp objects thrown his way, slicing his shoulder as it passed) tracing the length of the old blemish. He bent to kiss the scar with equal gentleness, fingers now inching toward the older teen's throat as his lips followed, teasing signs of a tell-tale grip around his neck. Tim inhaled cautiously (it wasn't like Damian would kill him for giving him a noogie…right?) when the younger boy suddenly pressed his lips to the inside of Tim's ear, it was all he could do to refrain from shuddering.

Damn him, damn his father, and damn his DNA for giving him all this damn charm.

"I feel like I should be in trouble…" Opening his mouth now was a very good way for Tim to get stabbed in the spleen or choked mercilessly by Damian. (He was surprised at himself for making the comment anyway.)

"Correct." Either Damian was aware of the effect whispering suggestively into Tim's ear had on him, or the boy was just a natural flirt, but he probably just liked torturing him with as little compassion as possible.

"But your actions-"Another wary inhale when he felt the younger boy pawing at his chest with one hand, other still lightly teasing his throat. Closer. Smaller space-less room for him to breathe. Here it was. The end was near. Damian was going to kill him while seducing him at the same time. Pure _evil. God Tim hated how hot he was._ "Damian-"

"Shut up, Drake."

Easy for him to say, he wasn't the one worrying about his impending doom. What a dumb thing to get killed over. If Tim had bothered to write a will, he would have insisted that no matter the real reason for his death, a cool story would be told in place of the original (because he always had a feeling when he finally _did_ die the event would cause a gratuitous amount of damage to what little amount of "cool" rep he had to start with) to spare his soul the humiliation of getting bullied in the afterlife. Did he even believe in that sort of thing? Oh well.

When Damian only kissed him roughly on the mouth instead of ripping out his spleen as Tim had expected him to do, it was safe to say that the young Drake was a little more than surprised. And slightly appalled. But more surprised (but still, slightly appalled). His fingers were suddenly tangled in Tim's hair and he could really get use to the idea of making out with Damian every time he did something the other guy didn't like-

That's when he pulled. _Hard_.

_Now,_ it all made sense.

Damian was yanking and pulling and just about ripping Tim's hair out while chomping on his bottom lip as if it were corn on the cob.

"Damn," He grinned against the teeth savagely attacking his mouth at that moment, "You sure are kinky."

"I _told _you to shut up, Drake."

"Hey Damian," A frustrated sigh as he leaned back to eye Tim with an air of superiority.

"What is it _now?"_

"I like your hair like that."

It might have been Tim's imagination, which was very likely when it came to Damian since the boy was always making him lose his mind, but he could have sworn that the compliment caused the smallest of blushes on the robot known as Damian Wayne's cheeks. He allowed Tim this sight for all of four seconds, before it was immediately replaced with his characteristic scowl.

"You are a complete imbecile."

Tim laughed all the same, stroking the younger boy's back affectionately. "I know, I know."

Funnily enough, though Damian would insist that styling his hair was too much trouble, Tim found the little brat doing the exact same thing in his bathroom the next morning.


End file.
